falloutfanonfandomcom-20200222-history
User talk:MongoosePirate
Archives Archive I Archive II Im still here Just being a lurker. Maine Nationalist (talk) 15:03, September 19, 2017 (UTC) Some thoughts As someone who has run a couple of Fanon Wikis and a former member here, I can offer a few thoughts on the current state (ie, no users) and some ways to turn it around if you're interested. If not, I understand. It's your Wiki, even if by default Darthfish (talk) 22:23, September 19, 2017 (UTC) Thoughts on Thoughts Thanks for the opportunity. I will disclaimer by saying these are just my thoughts and observations, and by no means meant to be taken as a "but you must". Lookign at it, Tranquillity Lane's biggest issue is retention of users. New ones come in, make a few articles and then wander off. Either that or their articles are purged and they have little reason to stay at all. An examination of the Wiki activity shows that the bulk of edits are made by a handful of people (Such as yourself) with the occasional other user making a small contribution. From examination of the Wiki's history, I can only conclude that root cause of this problem is cultural. Specifically, it’s a number of deep-seated cultural issues that need to be addressed. 1) Treatment of new users. The attitude of the Wiki’s administrators towards new users honestly seems to be somewhere between “cold” and “downright hostile”. At best, a new user will be given a default Macro greeting on their talk page and very little actual interaction or encouragement otherwise. At worst, they are treated as “guilty until proven innocent” with the idea that any potential new user is going to come in and post articles that will break the Wiki’s rules and guidelines and, as such, need to have said rules hammered into them as soon as possible. Now I’m not saying that every new user is a special snowflake that needs to be coddled and nurtured. But I am saying that that a lot more could be done both to encourage them to contribute and to make them feel like they’re an actually valued member of the community. To be honest, some of your intro pages (Such as the “About ” page linked off the front) are downright hostile towards new users, basically screaming at them that they are terrible people and that the admins will come down on them like the wrath of god if they even vaguely step out of line. This is not a helpful attitude. This is a downright hostile attitude. The about page has a lot of problems that need to be addressed, especially given that it’s one of the first things that a prospective new user sees. There is something else that could help here as well. Now while I understand that the Wiki has had a chequered past, there seems to be some need to harp on about said past. You don’t need to tell a new user “oh we deleted dozens of pages in our umpteenth purge”. That’s actively discouraging them and basically creating an air of “we can purge what we want when we want, so your page could go if we decide it”. This does not help. (Also, to be blunt, your own “tales from the deletion logs” aren’t exactly helpful either. I agree you purged some bad articles/characters/whatever. However, at the same time there’s a certain air of celebration about it. One of them basically amounts to “haha, we were arseholes to this one user, aren’t we funny”. This is not an encouraging attitude, regardless of if you feel they deserved it or not) In short: The admins need to work with new users, rather then against them. 2) Related to the above, and likely unintentional, there’s a definite feeling of the Wiki being an “old boys club” that exists mostly for the benefit of a handful of existing high-level users. Said users basically have free reign to write whatever they want, create what they want, do what they want and are not bound by the same rules and restrictions as an “unproven” new user. At the same time, new users are told a lot of “you can’t do this”, “don’t touch this”, “I’ve already claimed this bit of geography so hands off” and so on. If they want to create content within certain areas or covering certain subjects, a new user has to first basically lodge an application, hope that it will be treated favourably and so on. They also in essence, even if not a written rule, have to “prove” themselves to be a part of the Wiki and its culture and that they will measure up to some undefined standard before such a request will be considered. And while I know these rules aren’t written down or even official, they’re very much present in your culture. This can go one of two ways. Either first, the Administrators have to show that they are bound by the same rules and restrictions as everyone else. The second is that the administrators stop treating other users like second class citizens and allow them greater creative freedom. I’m going to expand more on this below. 3) I understand that Fallout is a long-lived franchise and has spawned a whole pile of computer games of vastly differing tone, technology levels, gameplay style, flavour and whatever else. That’s fine. What’s not fine is that there’s a distinct bias present in Tranquillity Lane’s culture. Simply put, there’s a prevalent attitude that the older 2D games are better than the newer 3D ones. Now I am not saying that personal opinions are bad at all. Where there is a problem is that these biases are used as the cultural roots of the entire wiki. Again, look at the “About” page. It basically hammers down “Fallout 3 = Bad/Wrong” and that the older games should take precedent over it. This runs contrary to the official policy that the newer games take precedent over the older ones, especially given the oft harsh inconstancies that they had. Unfortunately, this attitude keeps on recurring with a pervasive feeling that fans of the newer games are somehow lesser and that the Fallout universe would be somehow better if the franchise had stayed solely in that format/realm. And that attitude carries over to content as well, which I will get to later. In short, a handful of all-powerful super users get to decide what “Fallout” is, and their opinions are the only ones that count at all. This is not helpful at all. This basically tells a new user, one who might have come in through the latter games (Which, to be blunt, is more likely) that they are a bad person for liking what certain key segments of the wiki’s userbase see as being inferior games for whatever reason. A lot of it goes back to this overly hostile attitude I discussed above, and is yet another element that contributes to the lack of reason for a new user to stick around and meaningfully contribute. (I could draft a new version of the "about" page right now that would be far more neutral and less aggeessive and, more to the point, more encouraging and accepting) War never changes. But the Fallout franchise and its assciated fandom does. You cannot remain stuck in the past. 4) Restrictions on content. Hoo boy, I know this is a touchy subject and I know that Tranquillity Lane has had issues with this in past, but hear me out. Your restrictions on certain key items exist for a reason. That’s fine and all well and good, but they’re also, frankly, far too restrictive. You’ve clamped down hard on some of the things that are iconic to Fallout, such as Power Armour and Vaults to the point that a new user can’t possibly add one unless it’s approved in detail by the admins. And unfortunately, this ties into the abovementioned issues of administrator biases, cultural biases and the treatment of new users as guilty until proven innocent. As you can imagine, this does not help. Different people like different things about Fallout. Power Armour and Vaults are things that people like, and want to write about. They are just as legitimate subjects as anything else (eg Survivor communities, Ghouls, Super Mutants, Robots and so on). As it stands, however, there’s this harsh restriction that makes using them subject to the whims of an administrator who has to decide if a) they like the idea and b) it fits their personal vision of what Fallout might be. This is an actively discouraging issue. In fact, in many ways, I think it’s the biggest single roadblock to new users straight out the door. Not only does it prevent them from creating the content they want – possibly even then ideas that bought them here in the first place – but it also inadvertently exposes them to the cultural and bias issues that I discussed above. Now I am not saying that you need to throw said restrictions out the window straight away. What I am saying is that they need to be eased and relaxed in order to allow new users greater creativity and freedom to do the things that might have bought them here in the first place. Yes, locking users out from the major factions (Brotherhood of Steel, Railroad, Institute, Enclave, whatever else) is fine, or at least letting them ease themselves into such is a good idea. I’m not going to disagree there. However, the current system of “you can’t write an article featuring power armour or a vault or whatever else unless I say so” is deeply flawed and a major issues. Like I said, these are just my thoughts and observations as a (former) contributor and fellow Fanon wiki admin. What you do with this is up to you. However, it’s clear that Tranquillity Lane is at a crossroads. It’s not attracting new users, those that it does get aren’t retained and old users are leaving. What you chose to do about this will determine what happens next and where the Wiki goes form here. Darthfish (talk) 03:49, September 22, 2017 (UTC) -I really can't agree with "opening up" Power Armor, 'Big Guns', Vaults, atypical things, and so on being a good idea. I see nothing wrong with the current method of asking a mod for permission to do so. I've gotten permission for power armor and a semi-high powered robot (neither of which I've actually written up, lol), all it literally takes is asking in a talk page/chat message and a quick explanation of what the article is. In the three years or so I've been writing here, I've never had anyone be hostile, unreasonable, or anything else. I don't see how that is currently a problem in getting/retaining new users. Maybe the lockdown on such things can be phrased differently, other than 'people have abused it in the past and the power creep became so bloated that half the site had to be wiped years ago', but I don't think that the lockdown itself is in any way an actual problem. Dagnirion (talk) 01:59, September 24, 2017 (UTC) So, question. I can't decide on Youngstown, Ohio or Cleveland, Ohio for my chemical/steel city that is ruled by a gang of actually sane people. Think the Pitt but...better? Thank you! Thank you very much for the welcome. I had been considering joinng the Wiki for some time, but had been turned off by the over-tight rules. Your recent changes really changed my mind, so I'm looking forward to throwing down with contnet. One question - is there much that has been done with the Detroit/Michigan area? I've got some ideas, but I didn't want to accidetnally get in somebody else's way KayEmm (talk) 06:23, September 25, 2017 (UTC) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello! I still not sure if Cleveland or Youngstown. But thank you for warning me about the previous articles. I'll keep that in mind. Allen Rust, my main leader man was gonna be either leader of the Cleavers (Cleveland) or the Ironheads (Youngstown) and run the place. He was a former slaver from the Pitt and escaped with his lieutenents: Ripper Jack: A psychotic, drug-craving axe murder; Edward Cutter: the sense to Ripper Jack's madness. He sees a problem and tends to fix it in ways that he is the least likely involved, by turning people against each other.; Henry Hayes: the left hand man to Allen Rust, he helped Allen Rust's escape plan and was considered "One of the smartest men of the Pitt"; Bulk: is a dim-witted man who acts as Allen Rust's bodyguard. According to Hayes, Bulk was struck in the head by a falling car and only says the word "Bulk" and the occassional "Bad". The city is basically a large shanty town, with the outer ruins forming a seemingly "natural" wall. Unlike the Pitt, it's not slave labor but it's not peachy. It's hard, sweaty, long hour, no breaks, iron forging work. The river that runs through is filled with coal coke, oil sludge, steel byproduct, and more. Any person who fell in the river either lost skin, got sick, died, or died slowly. Also, I am! Thanks for the recognition! I started the articles, but then a few things in life caught up. UndeadHero (talk) 02:06, September 26, 2017 (UTC) Hey Mongoose, Could you check out the Cleveland Article. I started working on it, but got worried I was a over the top about it. UndeadHero (talk) 01:30, September 27, 2017 (UTC) I'm also thinking of the Cleavers have a C.I.T. scientist (former) named Dr. Malcolm Northrup who has been working with the Cleavers to help the city after they supposedly enslaved him after escaping from the Institute in an attempt to join the Railroad. Coming to Cleveland? Try the All American Antique Ale. Brought to you by the Lake Erie Brewing Company, sponsored by Allied Chemicals & Munitions Company! Serving the US Military as a Key Sponsor since 2054! UndeadHero (talk) 05:14, September 28, 2017 (UTC) To strike a 'deal' Hello. I know I have made many unfilled statements along with infecting this wiki with multiple unfinished articles. But I have finally organized myself much more than I ever have in my history, and believe that I can accomplish much more with this new schedule of mine, which involves me adding to my article for at least 20-30 minutes a day. And so I would like to strike a ‘deal’ with you. If I add an article on this wiki that is already somewhat developed and continue to add on it every day (or every other day depending on homework, events, etc…) I might have permission to stay on this wiki, so long as I’m active. However, if I do NOT add to an article for at least 2 weeks, or I am hardly active to only once a week for example, then I will leave this wiki and will not return (until, perhaps, I am out of college or some other time). I am not sure what you might think of this and I know what I have said before, but I have advanced greatly in my grammar and writing skills, political elements, making my articles more fitting to the Fallout Universe (no more excuses for artillery or mass-produced assault rifles), and the such. I hope you consider this and accept my extended… plea. Thank you - Lieutenant113 (talk) 19:19, October 2, 2017 (UTC) New here So someone put a delete template on my page (Megavault X) saying these words: "Read the rules". Where are these rules?